I haven’t done a links post in a while but the last few weeks have been crazy on my end so some of this might be outdated a bit. But some of this might still be new to you. Anyways, here is what I have bookmarked over the last couple weeks.

I did a numbers/stats thing on the USMNT and Clint Dempsey this past weekend since it is easy to do one of those things when you win 6-0.

ESPN’s Doug McIntyre sat down with Clint Dempsey to talk about a couple things, including losing the captain’s armband. It doesn’t seem like he minds that much.

Jozy Altidore told ESPN that he understands the Gold Cup roster swap that sent him home, but he thinks he could have still helped.

A report out of France says Quentin Westberg might be on the move to Tours FC in Ligue 2. Westberg has started only four of Sarpsborg’s 16 league games in Norway this year, but he has been the starting keeper in three of the last four league games.

With all this movement from Europe to MLS, Grant Wahl talked to Jurgen Klinsmann to see his thoughts on the moves of Diskerud, Altidore, Brek Shea and Jermaine Jones.

The USMNT continues training in Carson and Clint Dempsey apparently took over the homeless man beard look with Tim Howard not in camp. And Mix Diskerud likes Brad Evans’ hair. This is why you come to this site, for the hard-hitting journalism.

According to the San Antonio Business Journal, the US-Mexico friendly for April will take place at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The US has only played one game before in San Antonio, a 1-0 win over Costa Rica on June 14, 1988.

One player at this month’s camp that you probably don’t know that much about is Julio Morales. Brian Sciaretta gets you caught up to date on Mr. Morales. It looks like Morales might not be able to play in the friendlies just yet (although he can still participate in the camp) as he has to file a one-time switch with FIFA since he played with Mexico at the 2013 U-20 World Cup.

Much like Brad Friedel with the U-20 team, another former player, Carlos Bocanegra, is helping out as a coach this month.

Kyle McCarthy takes a look at the mixture of vets and youth as camp begins.

In other USMNT news, CONCACAF has moved up the start of the final round of World Cup qualifying (a.k.a. The Hex) by three months to November of 2016 due to FIFA eliminating some international fixture dates in 2017. The draw for the first round will take place on Thursday, but the US won’t enter qualification until the fourth round, beginning in November of 2015. Yes, the whole cycle is about to start up again.

And we might know about two more friendlies for this year as Fox Sports ran this graphic during Friday’s U-20 game, which shows games against Australia and Ghana for later this year.

Speaking of Mr. Zelalem, the guys over at The Short Fuse have a little write- up on the savoir of American soccer Arsenal prospect.

Moving onto some club news.

All signs are pointingtowards Mix Diskerud signing with NYCFC later today (or this week).

There was some more Jozy Altidore-to-MLS chatter over the weekend and Toronto FC appears to have the edge at the moment. If this were to go down, I am just going to pretend that this was some mastermind of Klinsi to get Michael Bradley and Jozy practicing together everyday.

Heath Pearce didn’t come to terms with Orlando City after being taken in the expansion draft, so he might be looking to take his talents to Europe. Pearce began his professional career in Denmark with FC Nordsjælland and also played with Hansa Rostock in Germany so he does have experience abroad.

I can’t find much more on this, but Frank Simek’s wikipedia page has been updated that he is now with Sông Lam Nghệ An in Vietnam. As one would expect, it is not easy to find solid information on this team or league.

Camp begins January 12 and we should see a roster in the next few days. Jurgen Klinsmann/US Soccer released a video earlier this week to various members of the press where he explained that 2015 will focus a lot of attention on the youth teams, especially the U-23 Olympic team.

“The main task for 2015 is definitely the Olympic team, the U-23 team, to get that off the ground. To identify players, get camps on the agenda, get games on the agenda for that team, and help them to kind of build a core group towards the qualifiers. We want to make sure that what happened with London 2012 is not happening again. We put this on a higher priority level and I think that’s exciting.”

Tab Ramos selected his 20-man roster for the 2015 CONCACAF U-20 Championship on Monday. While Ben Spencer is on the roster, apparently CONCACAF’s website had Joel Sonora’s name on the roster at first. It looks like Sonora originally made the team, but was pulled off due to an injury.

With 2014 ending, we have closed off our 2014 goal tracker. Jann George led the way with 20 goals across all competitions in the calendar year. I have already setup the 2015 page as Jon-Paul Pittman scored a goal on January 1 while we were too busy watching the Big Ten beat up on the SEC West.

And finally, we can blame Alex Olshansky for bringing this to my attention, but here is the weird BBC intro for the US/Portugal match from last summer’s World Cup. You can tell even Gary Lineker thought it was odd at the end of the video.

A bunch of stuff from this week and other stuff from last week that I meant to post but didn’t, so let’s get after it.

Yesterday was a good day for Americans in Europe. John Brooks continued his recent strong play by scoring his first goal since THAT goal against Ghana (highlights from yesterday). Over in Belgium, Sacha Kljestan came off the bench and scored a goal in Anderlecht’s 3-0 win in the Belgian Cup (highlights). Also in the Belgian Cup, Kenny Saief scored for Gent in their 4-1 win (no highlights found yet). And back in Germany, Alfredo Morales was credited with an assist in Ingolstadt’s 2-1 win, but his teammate did most of the dirty work (highlights).

Howie posted some links about Brek Shea heading back to the US and Orlando City, but Greg Seltzer is hearing that some other Championship teams might be still interested in his services.

Herculez Gomez is headed back to Puebla. This will be his seventh different stint with a Liga MX team in the last five seasons, but he would be returning to his original stint/team where he won his scoring title in 2010.

Ventura Alvarado and Club America won the Apertura title this past fall so here are two interviews for you, one in English and one in Spanish.

Dom Dwyer signed a new contract with Sporting Kansas City which will keep him in the US for a while longer. Since he received his green card in 2012, he would be eligible to apply for citizenship in 2017.

After a stint in England that could optimistically be described as disastrous, Stoke/Birmingham (on loan) winger Brek Shea has lined up a stateside return to join MLS expansion team Orlando City, according to local Orlando media.

Orlando City is finalizing a move to sign the U.S. winger from Stoke City, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the move. The transfer, expected to be completed in the coming days, will bring back the former Major League Soccer All-Star and Best XI selection and could reinvigorate the career of a top U.S. prospect.

Let’s start off with some leftovers from last Friday. Oguchi Onyewu is showing off the importance of having an EU passport as he continues to find work in England as he signed with Charlton Athletic until January.

CONCACAF held the draw for the 2015 CONCACAF U-20 Championship last week and the US U-20 team has learned its fate.

Greg Seltzer takes a look at some possible January transfer scenarios for Jozy Altidore, Mix Diskerud and Brek Shea. One of the teams mentioned for Altidore is the French side Lille and there might be some more to this possible loan according to this tweet from a reporter who follows the French league. I think we are all in agreement that Jozy just needs to get out of Sunderland.

The rumored USMNT friendly against Croatia at Craven Cottage for November (that their federation announced) looks to be no mas. That said, US Soccer looks to be talking to Colombia about filling that void and still playing at Craven Cottage. But if you remember, Colombia was the team that US Soccer tried to schedule for September for the second friendly and that fell through. Basically nothing is official until US Soccer announces something.

This was the weekend of players returning to the field. Geoff Cameron came off the bench and played 29 minutes (completing 15-of-15 passes) in Stoke City’s 2-1 win over Swansea City. Stoke City’s website got a couple post-game quotes from Cameron.

Terrence Boyd made his return this weekend, coming off the bench and playing 29 minutes in RB Leipzig’s 1-0 loss to Nurnberg. Here is a photo of Boyd in action.

Aron Johannsson played in his first game since the World Cup. It was with AZ Alkmaar’s reserve team on Monday, but he scored from the penalty spot (highlights).

While he didn’t come back from injury, John Brooks appears to be out of the dog house as he came off the bench for Hertha Berlin in a 2-0 loss to Schalke.

And while we had those players coming back, we did have a couple Americans pick up injuries this weekend.

In the battle of American goalkeepers, Tim Howard (photo) and Everton defeated Brad Guzan (photo) and Aston Villa. It was Howard’s 350th career Premier League appearance, trailing only Brad Friedel (450) for the most all-time by an American.